Bankloch

In a time of real-time, instant payments, it is strange to see that companies providing pre-paid gift vouchers are still massively being created and continue to grow. At first sight buying such a gift voucher has only disadvantages, as it converts liquid currency to a product, with less favorable qualities (i.e. can only be consumed in certain shops or even in only 1 shop and usually limited in time). There are however many good reasons for the existence of such gift vouchers: In many countries there is a   fiscal advantage   for employers to offer such gift vouchers to their employees or to their business relations. Of course the government limits the amount and frequency (usually only for specific occasions) at which such vouchers can be offered and limits the places (usually can only be consumed in that country) where they can be consumed, but it’s still a very interesting way for businesses to offer a highly liquid advantage/gift at a lower cost. A gift voucher is often a ...

In most industries there is an   evolution from pre-paid to post-paid , i.e. instead of having to  acquire products or pay costly subscriptions or licenses upfront (with a lot of unnecessary features), there is a tendency to pay more based on usage. This trend of "Everything as a Service" is converting massively CapEx into OpEx, which finance departments in most firms can only applaud. Following this trend you would assume that   pre-paid cards and pre-paid accounts   will soon also be a thing of the past, although today they are still quite   common , with a strong usage in the telecom industry (for pre-paid phone cards), for gift vouchers and in pre-paid credit cards. The reason they are so popular is their   convenience and the sense of control   they give to the user, i.e. instead of having to take a subscription or open a bank account (which is typically a lengthy process with a lot of due diligence steps), an anonymous sum of money can...